Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0005
G. D. Biase
This chapter investigates the genesis and evolution of Locke’s idea of human life as a “state of mediocrity”. While this idea had ancient roots going back to the early Church fathers, it remained current in the seventeenth century where mediocrity was generally equated with a condition of partial ignorance and imperfection. Locke’s account of it is original; while life is a time of mediocrity, death opens the way to the extremes of eternal misery or eternal happiness. Initially, inspired by the Church fathers, Locke conceived of human life as a condition of intellectual mediocrity. Subsequently, and arguably prompted by his reading of the pessimistic outlooks of Nicole and Pascal, he redefined the state of mediocrity in more optimistic terms: humans are naturally suited to their mediocre state. A further development of his conception of mediocrity, again involving a partial rethinking of the human condition, can be found in the Essay, where Locke represents mediocrity as an imperfect state of insatiable desire. It is redeemed, however, by the ability of living human beings to attain perfect knowledge of morality.
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Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0002
U. Renz
This chapter addresses the question whether our consciousness of being alive can be a source of knowledge, and if so, of what kind of knowledge. It examines this question as it is discussed by a sequence of early modern philosophers who all implicitly consider the issue. The chapter begins with a discussion of the early modern idea of consciousness, viewed as an epistemic relation. It goes on to show that interest in the notion that we are immediately aware of being alive arose in reaction to Descartes’ dualism. For example, the Cartesian Louis de La Forge attempted, but failed, to accommodate the feeling of being alive within a dualist framework. Against this background, the chapter turns to discuss Spinoza’s early attempts to appeal to our consciousness of being alive in order to refute Cartesian scepticism. It concludes that our consciousness of being alive can be considered a source of knowledge, and that, however simple this lesson appears, it may be of moral importance.
这一章讨论的问题是，我们活着的意识是否可以成为知识的来源，如果可以，是什么样的知识。它考察了这个问题，因为它是由一系列早期现代哲学家讨论的，他们都含蓄地考虑这个问题。这一章首先讨论了早期现代的意识概念，将其视为一种认知关系。它继续表明，人们对“我们立即意识到自己活着”这一概念的兴趣是对笛卡尔二元论的回应。例如，笛卡尔学派的路易斯·德·拉·福吉(Louis de La Forge)试图在二元论框架内容纳活着的感觉，但失败了。在此背景下，本章转而讨论斯宾诺莎早期试图诉诸我们的活着意识，以驳斥笛卡尔的怀疑主义。它的结论是，我们活着的意识可以被认为是知识的来源，而且，无论这个教训看起来多么简单，它可能具有道德重要性。
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Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0004
M. F. Camposampiero
Leibniz upholds immortalism in its extreme form. Nothing ever really dies, for animals (and not only their souls) are indestructible except by God’s power. Eighteenth-century philosophers described Leibniz’s doctrine as exilium mortis or “the banishment of death”, which most of them rejected as an implausible, ridiculous, or even scandalous notion. In order to understand this negative reaction, this chapter reconstructs the German debate among Leibniz’s contemporaries and immediate posterity on such issues as: Is the banishment of death a novelty or just an updated version of some traditional belief? How can the living body preserve its own identity through the dramatic transformations caused by death? On the other hand, the general hostility that surrounded the banishment-of-death doctrine suggests that the denial of natural mortality was actually perceived as a threat to Christian dogma – which challenges the naive assumption that immortalist claims are mere expression of a philosopher’s pious concerns.
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Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0016
C. Wolfe
I examine a series of definitions, defences and rejections of early modern vitalism. This yields a broad distinction between more or less metaphysically committed forms of vitalism. Given the plurivocity of the term, I suggest that we restrict the term ‘vitalist’ to thinkers who are actively concerned with the distinction between life and non-life (whether or not they substantialize this distinction), with special reference to the case of eighteenth-century Montpellier vitalism – where the term was first explicitly used. Further, I discuss the association of vitalism with a (potentially problematic) metaphysics of life as partly a polemical construct – which is internal to the process of defining projects and programs in life science, where one vital(istical)ly oriented author will, almost desperately, seek to brand a predecessor or a rival as a vitalist in order to legitimize her own apparently more ‘experimental’ brand of organicism. But perhaps metaphysics is endemic to vitalism?
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Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0015
S. Marston
Spinoza argues that all entities are animated. Nonetheless, his philosophy provides a systematic grounding for our everyday distinction between living and non-living things. While all bodies in motion bring about transitive effects, living things share a further capacity for bringing about transformative effects, making real changes in themselves and in other entities. Further, this capacity in living things derives from their acting in virtue of their inadequate ideas. Inadequate ideas in Spinoza’s philosophy are thus intrinsic to living things’ being the kinds of things they are, underpinning both the everyday distinction between living and non-living things and the observable varying repertoires of effect among living things themselves.
{"title":"Affect and Effect","authors":"S. Marston","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Spinoza argues that all entities are animated. Nonetheless, his philosophy provides a systematic grounding for our everyday distinction between living and non-living things. While all bodies in motion bring about transitive effects, living things share a further capacity for bringing about transformative effects, making real changes in themselves and in other entities. Further, this capacity in living things derives from their acting in virtue of their inadequate ideas. Inadequate ideas in Spinoza’s philosophy are thus intrinsic to living things’ being the kinds of things they are, underpinning both the everyday distinction between living and non-living things and the observable varying repertoires of effect among living things themselves.","PeriodicalId":129974,"journal":{"name":"Life and Death in Early Modern Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131191305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0003
M. Moriarty
The chapter highlights the variety of specifically Christian philosophical approaches to the question of the soul’s immortality. Leonard Lessius and Jean de Silhon, working within a broadly Aristotelian framework, argue that the purposiveness universally apparent in nature would be frustrated if humans were mortal. Descartes eschews such appeals to the divine purpose, but his dualist metaphysics offers grounds for belief in the soul’s capacity to survive death. He and Elisabeth of Bohemia discuss how far belief in a happier life after death should affect our pursuit of earthly happiness. Pascal rejects philosophical proofs of immortality, while insisting that we must take an existential stance that admits it as a possibility. Malebranche seeks to highlight the unreality of earthly goods, but, by distinguishing the physical from the intelligible body, he investigates the possibility of post-mortem forms of experience (sensations and attachments) that are in some sense continuous with those of this life.
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Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192843616.003.0008
Michael Jaworzyn
The Cartesian Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665) sometimes refers to philosophy as meditatio mortis, which he understands as the separation of the mind from the body. This chapter outlines the ways that Clauberg amends the Cartesian accounts of the union of mind and body and of the nature of life and death in such a way as to be able to accommodate this view of philosophy. It argues that Clauberg adopts a broader account of life and death than Descartes, and alters the nature and extent of the mind’s and body’s respective causal powers to that end. Finally, the chapter looks at the implications of this conception of philosophy in Clauberg’s broader philosophical and theological context. Not only does philosophical contemplation provide no guidance in the practical sphere – including in theology – but it can be detrimental to our everyday lives.
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